The following abstract has been revised to reflect the information as it was presented by Jeff Cohen on July 9, 2007 and therefore does not match exactly the published abstract:

Title:  Effect of Tribasic Copper Chloride on performance of broiler chickens and piglets facing health challenges

Three experiments were conducted to evaluate the role of tribasic copper chloride (TBCC) in mitigating the detrimental effects of health challenges.  Experiment 1 was a 21-day floor pen study conducted with 300 Cobb chicks divided into five groups (five replicates each of 10 chicks) inoculated with Candida albicans and Coccidia to induce crop mycosis at 3 days of age and fed a corn-soybean meal diet supplemented with 0, 125 or 250 ppm Cu from either feed-grade Cu sulfate or TBCC. As measured by disease scores for spread of infection in crop membranes and for number of observed intestinal lesions, both copper sources at both treatment levels gave a significant improvement over untreated, infected birds, with 250 ppm Cu being statistically better than 125 ppm.  Only TBCC at 250 ppm gave crop mycosis scores equal to the negative control.  Body weight gain and feed conversion were significantly improved versus the positive control at both 125 and 250 ppm added Cu, regardless of source.  A linear regression of the data showed TBCC to be 112% as bioavailable as copper sulfate.  In Experiment 2, 96 1-day-old Ross broiler chicks were divided into the four groups (three replicates each of 8 broiler chicks); Control (basal diet), Aflatoxin (1 ppm), TBCC (200 ppm copper as TBCC) and AF plus TBCC (1 ppm aflatoxin plus 200 ppm copper as TBCC). The chicks were maintained on these treatments for 42 days. Serum biochemical analyses were performed at the end of the experiment and growth performance parameters of chicks were evaluated weekly during the experiment.  The AF-induced changes in the levels of albumin, total protein and total cholesterol, and in the activities of serum ALT, LDH and ALP were detrimentally altered by AF, and significantly improved by adding TBCC to the AF-containing diet.  While supplementation of TBCC to the AF containing diet did not improve the BWG, adverse effects of AFs on FCR were reversed by TBCC supplementation.      In Experiment 3, 150 weanling pigs were divided into 6 treatments (five reps of 5 pigs each):  Control (basal diet), 1000 or 1500 ppm Zinc (as Tetrabasic Zinc Chloride) and each of these three + Cu at 150 ppm (as Tribasic Copper Chloride).  Scour scores and ADG were measured at 21 days.  The addition of 150 ppm Cu from TBCC significantly reduced the incidence of scours (P<0.04) and significantly increased ADG (P<0.007) versus either Basal or Zn-supplemented diets.  All three studies suggest that TBCC is effective in preventing performance reduction often associated with toxins that challenge animal health.